


the best day of the year

by FluffyBlue



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Lance's Birthday, Movie Night, birthday fic, but like you have to really really squint, if you squint really hard there's some hance and some klance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-08 01:50:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11636430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FluffyBlue/pseuds/FluffyBlue
Summary: Lance forgot about his birthday, but his team certainly didn't <3





	the best day of the year

When Lance woke up from his nap, there was a note taped to his forehead.

 

_Follow the blue cat_

 

He frowned, wondering what kind of silly prank Hunk and Pidge had come up with this time, but decided to play along; it would be a nice change of pace after the last few days. They had gone from fighting off Galra invaders on one planet to fighting them off on another, day after day, for weeks now. With the Emperor gone, they had wanted to take advantage of the instability that had resulted from the lack of leadership as much as possible before the Galra got their act together. It had worked pretty well for a while until a couple days ago when a new leader had surfaced and easily forced them to retreat and regroup.

 

Lance had been happy for the break, after so many consecutive days of non-stop fighting that he had utterly lost track of the passing weeks, but the tension in the castle as they and the Blade tried to come up with a strategy against this new enemy had been palpable, even more so as Allura still had some difficulty getting along with the Marmorans. She tried her best to hide it, knowing she could not let her personal feelings get in the way of defeating the Galra Empire, but it still showed, and even with Shiro's best mediating efforts, a few arguments had still broken out.

 

So Lance was happy to start off his day with whatever prank Hunk or Pidge or both had come up with. He smiled at the memory of the last prank they had pulled on him. (It had involved a fake training exercise, ancient Altean slingshots, and a previously thought to be decommissioned food serving android Pidge had scavenged from a crashed space ship. And lots of food goo. So much food goo.)

 

Greeting him as he stepped out of his room was the blue silhouette of a cat stamped on the wall opposite his door. Looking in the direction the cat seemed to be walking towards, Lance spotted another stamped cat near the end of the hall. Shaking his head slightly in amusement, he followed the notes' instructions.

 

Stamp after stamp, corridor after corridor, he followed the blue cats through areas of the ships he hadn't had the opportunity to explore yet, until a small door that he might have missed entirely were it not for the two sitting cats stamped on either side of it.

 

Lance hesitated. As much as he'd loved the last prank, some of his clothes still had food goo stains in the most improbable places. He wasn't exactly looking forward to spending more hours washing his clothes if there was a great big bucket of food goo waiting to drop on him behind that door.

 

Then it occurred to him this could be another case of Haunted Castle, or some sort Galra trick. He hadn't run into a single one of the others on his wild cat chase. What if they'd all been led into a trap by these cat silhouettes?

 

A drop of sweat slowly made its way down his forehead as he felt a sense of dread growing in him. He was just about to run to get his paladin armour, ready to face whatever was waiting for him inside that room when he heard the oddest sound from the other side of the door.

 

Laughter.

 

There is nothing quite like the sound of laughter to make you feel ridiculous when you were just in fear for your life and ready to fight. There is also no sound quite so reassuring, especially when it's coming from Hunk.

 

 _Next time I'll tell them to make the signs less creepy_ , Lance thought as he opened the door.

 

His senses were immediately assaulted by bright lights and loud noises, a jarring yet reassuring contrast to the creepy quiet of the dimly lit halls he'd just come from. As he readjusted to the sudden change, his brain finally identified the source of the loud noises.

 

“SURPRISE!!”

 

The other members of team Voltron had jumped out from behind various pieces of furniture to greet him with the loud cheer. Lance didn't have time to notice anything else before they all wrapped him into a giant hug.

 

He was utterly confused for a moment before Hunk said “Happy brithday” and the others enthusiastically followed suit.

 

Lance had had no idea it was his birthday, having long since lost track of Earth dates in the unending chaos of fighting Galra, saving the universe, becoming the hero of a space merpeople and almost dying more times than he could count.

 

But Hunk had remembered. Of course he had. Hunk was incredible that way.

 

When everyone stepped back from him after the big hug, Lance finally took in the room.

 

A huge blue birthday banner, seemingly cut from some plant with blue leaves, hung from the ceiling; on a table sat a gigantic multi-layered blue birthday cake; off to one side stood Kaltenecker, munching on some straw and wearing a party hat; on the right-hand wall was a screen displaying the words 'Happy birthday Lance' being showered in virtual confetti; in front of the screen lay a worn out couch with a coffee table and-

 

Lance had to do a double take. On top of the coffee table lay a huge pile of ancient DVDs, Blu-Rays, and even some VHS tapes.

 

Turning to Hunk with incredulous eyes, he could only gesticulate vaguely towards the table and make what were no doubt the funniest grimaces of total incomprehension.

 

Twirling his moustache, Coran started. “We wanted to get something really special for your birthday, after hearing from Hunk how much you loved this day!”

 

“Coran and I were at a bit of a loss as the tradition is still a bit new to us.” Allura continued, smiling at Shiro, who added;

  
“I haven't known you as long as those two.” He pointed to Pidge and Hunk. “So I thought they would know best what to get you.”

 

“I remembered how happy you looked in that Earth-junk shop at the space mall, helping me get that video game.” Pidge turned to Hunk.

 

“So Pidge, Keith and I went back to that shop to see if we could find something there. We weren't, like, totally sure that we would find the right thing there, but we figured it'd be a good place to start.” As he was talking, Hunk led Lance towards the table to show him what they'd found. “I mean, sometimes when I don't know what to cook I just go to the store and walk through the aisles until something catches my eye, you know. So I thought we could do that.”

 

“And then once we were there, there was this big chest filled with old movies.” Pidge explained as she jumped onto the couch. “We knew we had to buy them. The shop keeper had all the equipment to watch them too and it was no big deal figuring out how to hook them up to the castle's screens since I did the same with my game console last time, I am a tech genius after all.” Pidge smirked. “And the couch and the coffee table were bonus - apparently aliens don't enjoy couches, which makes no sense, they are demonstrably the most comfortable piece of furniture to have ever graced this universe - so we got those for free, but anyways-” She turned to Keith, visibly expecting him to tell his part of the Chronicles of Lance's Birthday Present.

 

“You're always talking about your favourite title this, your favourite actor that - it was pretty easy finding the right movies to get you”, he said, looking slightly embarrassed.

 

“Yeah, honestly man, I was surprised,” Hunk added, “I mean I know your tastes pretty well from rooming with you at the Garrison, so Keith kept asking me 'do you think he'd like this one?' and honestly, yeah, every one he suggested seemed exactly like your kind of movie, I was really surprised.”

 

Rifling through the pile of boxes, it was clear Keith indeed knew Lance's tastes very well. There were movies he'd watched a hundred times a kid and movies he'd wanted to see for forever but had never gotten around to, movies that had made him laugh until his cheek hurt and movies that had made him cry his eyes out, movies that were terrible but in the best way and movies that were so great he could scarcely believe they were real sometimes.

 

Taking in the room around him, which he now saw was filled with so many traditional Earth decorations he hadn't noticed before, whether they were the real deal (bought no doubt at the space mall), or imitations crafted from whatever resources they'd found in their travels across the universe, taking in the faces of his friends who had made this all happen- Lance could scarcely believe this moment was real.

 

“You guys...” he started, not knowing what to say and feeling himself tear up a little. He felt Hunk's hand on his shoulder and settled for the only words that came to mind, though they didn't feel like enough to convey how grateful he was for his friends. “Thank you so much.”

 

He wrapped Hunk into a big hug and was about to do the same with Pidge when she grabbed him by the arm and led him to the table with the cake. Allura turned off the room's lights while Shiro lit the candles, and everyone started singing, and Lance felt so overwhelmed with joy he thought he might just explode.

 

The candles blown out, they all settled on and around the couch for a movie night eating the delicious cake Hunk had made. (Lance had amazing fun explaining Earth lore to Allura and Coran in the context of The Mummy (1999), but after that first movie they decided it might be even funnier watching them try and figure it out for themselves.)

 

Falling asleep in the big pile of limbs that was Team Voltron after the fourth movie, Lance felt the happiest he had been since leaving Earth, knowing he had found a second home.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I know the writing's probably a bit clumsy since I'm not that great of a writer (yet!), but I hope it's still a good read : )


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